Snow Stitching!

How many of you are covered up in snow?  Here in Nashville, we received a record 6-7 inches of snow yesterday - very rare for these parts.  And it's beautiful!!!  No ice.... just soft, blindingly white, puffy and fluffy SNOW!

I think it's interesting that the two projects I had planned to work on this weekend are the blue Twinkle Stars for the Rainbow Scrap Challenge (first photo above), and Bertie's Year - December.

Angela at SoScrappy posted a fun tutorial for these beautiful Twinkle Star blocks on her blog as the January block for the RSC Column-Along she is doing this year.  I saw Sharon's beautiful blocks on her post at Vrooman's Quilts last week and fell in love!  So much so that, although I had other projects planned to be working on, I immediately had to to pull fabrics and print out the pattern right then and there!  I chose blues and whites that made me think of snow - maybe my bones were telling me the white stuff was coming our way? :*)

I managed to complete four blocks last week ....

..... and today I plan to put them together into a winter-themed runner for our kitchen bar.

Believe it or not, this was my very first time ever to use Tri-Recs rulers.  I've had the rulers forever, but always avoided them.  I was even tempted to paper piece these; Angela very kindly gave us a link to the foundation patterns in her wonderful tutorial.  But I decided to be adventurous and was rewarded with a fun afternoon of piecing.  I can't wait to finish this runner and enjoy it in my kitchen!

Yesterday, I finally pulled poor little December Bertie out of the bag and started work on her.

She was part of a BOM project for me in 2014, and this was the only month I did not finish up last year.  I felt really sorry for her, being so neglected.  I put her on my guild's UFO Challenge list so I could make sure she got finished this year in time for Christmas, and was delighted when her number was called for January!

These kits were laser-cut fusible applique, so all I had to do was peel away the paper, place them on the background and fuse.  Easy-peasy!  Then I stitched the applique pieces down, using either a straight stitch or a buttonhole stitch... Leaving me with lots of strings to tie off :*)

Last night I caught up on a few episodes of The Good Wife and worked the embroidery embellishments....

I also got all the half-square triangles made and assembled for the border.

Tomorrow I'll join Kathy's gang for some Slow Sunday Stitching as I handstitch the border embroidery while watching the NFL Playoff games with My Guy.  Our Panthers are playing for the Conference title, and of course if they win, they will go to the Super Bowl!!!  Exciting times my friends :*)

We are settled in for a long, solitary weekend.  One of my favorite things to do on cold, snowy winter days is to work jigsaw puzzles! I have this one set out to play with this weekend when I'm not stitching.

After New Year's while I was too sick to do much else beside sit, I did this one ....

Maybe I should have waited until this week LOL!!!

How well I remember the days when my children were small and they almost vibrated in their excitement to get outside and play in the stuff!  We didn't get a lot of snow in south-eastern North Carolina, so it was an exciting event when a storm dropped anything more than half an inch.  I had to go dig out a couple of my favorite memories from their childhood to share with you ....

Joshua in front of our house
circa 1980

 I bundled them up as if it were a North Dakota blizzard!!!

Christy in front yard
circa 1978
Probably one of my favorite pics of her childhood ever!!!

Notice in both pictures that there is only a small patch of snow for them to play in.  It almost always melted quickly, so they had to get out there and make the most of it!  Of course, they were out there maybe ten minutes before they were crying to come back in again, dripping water and snow all over the floor LOL!!!  In and out, in and out, for as long as the patches of snow lasted.  Those were good times :*)

Hoping you are finding ways to enjoy the snow if Jonas visited your neck of the woods!  My snowbird friends are sending us pictures of sunny Florida.  I'm not sure I'll be speaking to them when they return.... =^..^=

Also linking up:

DesignWall Monday

Tuesday Linky

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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Catching Up With Miss Bertie ....

It's been quite a while since we checked in to see what Miss Bertie's has been up to .....



This is May's little wall quilt which I finished up last year.  It has greeted me each morning this month as I blindly stumble toward the coffee pot - so bright and happy!  As you know, one of my favorite things about Miss Bertie is her creative hat choices.  Don't you just love the little spring blossom hat on this one?

At the end of the year last year, I had completed six of these fun little BOM quilts - January through June.  December is still in the bag, untouched.  But July through November were in various stages of completion.  Four of them were pieced, appliqued and embroidered, just in need of sandwiching and quilting to be done.  The August quilt still needed to have the half-square-triangle border attached and the embroidery stitched around the center section....

Finishing these five quilts was one of my items on my Q2 Finish-Along list, as well as my guild's UFO list for this year, so I grabbed up my box and took it along to retreat a couple of weeks ago at the Red Rooster.

And Lo and Behold!

I got all five DONE!!!

(They may look a little wonky because they are not laying flat on the table, 

but they are perfectly straight, I promise :*)

July Bertie's Year
One of my absolute FAVORITES!!!

August Bertie's Year

September Bertie's Year

October Bertie's Year

November Bertie's Year

HOORAY!!!!

I'd really rather not think about how much more quickly the months fly by with each passing year.  Is that true for you too?  Well, I find that looking forward to displaying a new little quilt with each flip of the calendar page makes it a little easier :*)

I'm delighted to mark this item off my Q2 Finish Along list - you can see my list HERE if you are interested.  Adrianne at On the Windy Side blog is the hostess of this fun quarterly event, and I have to say, it has really helped to motivate me to get some projects completed that would very likely still be languishing on a shelf in my UFO closet!

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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A Little Stitching Here and There....

It's amazing the things we learn about ourselves as we "mature" - for lack of a better word!  For instance, I've learned that I have to give myself incentives in order to put down something I'm passionate about (Patchwork of the Crosses) in order to buckle down and finish up something else (Bertie's Year).

I was FIVE behind on these BOM blocks ... clearly, drastic measures were called for!  

My POTC fabrics have been calling my name in vain these past two weeks, because I've committed to finishing up these five Bertie blocks first.  And guess what?  I'm making great progress on getting them done!

Last week, I showed you the October and November blocks as I finished them up....

This week, I finished up July Bertie and added it to the growing pile for sandwiching and quilting.  That Bertie is rather sassy, isn't she?  She just spits out those seeds any where!  I think she may be just a teensy bit tipsy on blueberry wine LOL!!!

And then I got all the basic stitching done on September - this one is ready for it's half-square triangle border and then the final embroidery around the border.

I just couldn't wait to start on that sweet little squirrel!!!  

I'm so glad Bertie has nice friends, aren't you?

All of her forest friends are so friendly and love to share with her!  Maybe that is because she is friendly and likes to share .... we learn so much from the animal world if we just take the time to observe them, don't we?

I started on the August block last night and got all of the green leaves & stems done ....

All that's left is the pear stem, Bertie's eye and feet, and then some white polka dots in her kerchief.  I'm hoping to finish it up today so I can piece these last two borders tomorrow.  This was the LAST Bertie in my box!!!

Ahhhhhhh - it's so nice to have an empty project box!!!!  

It won't be empty long, however.  I got the notice a few days ago that December Bertie has shipped and is on its way to me.  The plan is to be all caught up when it gets here so I can finish it up this month.  I don't know that I have EVER actually finished up a year-long BOM in an actual year - wow!!!

I've also unearthed my poor little neglected Hootie owls and got busy working on finishing them up....

I'm thinking the last two owls will be orange and gray... (or maybe light brown?) ... what do you think?  The brown fabric on the left is my best stash fabric for the tree and limbs.  If I still like it when the Hooties are done, it can stay :)  However, the Red Hootie is going to need major surgery....

As I shared back when I made this one, I'm really unhappy with my fabric choices.  All the fabrics just mush together.  This is my definition of a hot mess, so, it will be getting a much-needed makeover this week !!!!

I've got a lot on the calendar this coming week, but most of it is fun quilty stuff.

I hope you are planning lots of fun time with your favorite quilt projects!

Linking up with Kathy's Quilts.....

Be sure to go over and read her post today about

quilting and the perils of multi-tasking!

Patchwork Times - Design Wall Monday

Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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Scrapping and Stitching!

Sunday is the day I always enjoy sitting and stitching with my friends over at Kathy's Quilts.....

And today I'm still working on finishing up my Bertie's Year blocks.  Above is the November block - all ready for sandwiching and quilting.  And October is done too.....

I have to say, I'm not as happy with this one.  It just seems dull to me.  I looked at maybe using the orange fabrics for the border, but that was too much.  And with 3 more still waiting for their embroidery and embellishments, this one will just have to stay the way it is!

I'm currently working on the embellishments for July Bertie.....

All the stitching is done except for Bertie's claws in gold.  The seeds and fly stitch on the watermelon were a lot of fun!  If you look closely, you will see that I had already done a decorative fly stitch by machine, not realizing that the pattern would call for that in off-white by hand later.  After the hand work is done, I'll pull out that green machine stitching.  (And then again, maybe I won't *vbg*)

I also did a little touch up work on the berries.  The sample picture shows pretty blueberries in a nice blue-purple color......  you can see the original looks like actual wools, not flannels :)

Original sample quilt by Bonnie Sullivan

But the flannel they sent with the kit is a blah gray.  I really didn't want to have to take them off, find another fabric, trace ..... right - all that nonsense!  Then, last night I spied my colored pencils on my desk - the pencils I paid a fortune for last year because the teacher in one of my classes at Quiltfest required that we bring this exact brand of pencil, and we NEVER TOUCHED THEM! - yes, those pencils :)  And I thought, why not color them a brighter color?

I think it worked just fine!  You can see in the picture on the right where I had begun to color them, first with a bright blue, then a purple over that.  The bottom left berry just has the blue and is waiting for the purple top coat :)

I hope to get the hst borders on this one today, and that will leave only these two for me to embellish.

If I work quickly, I  may even get them done before I receive the last December kit!  Of course, they all still need to be sandwiched and quilted, but that really doesn't take very long.  One day ought to do it :)

I've also done some machine sewing!  I've joined in on the Scraptastic Tuesday fun with Nicky at Mrs. Sew and Sow and Leann at She Can Quilt  - here are the two blocks I made the other day out of my RED crumb jar....

Aren't they cute???

You can read HERE about my determination to empty out my crumb jars.  Since I've discovered that no project ever gets done unless I actually start the process of working on it, I thought it a good idea to pull out one of the jars and get to it .... amazing how that works, isn't it?  LOL!!!  

So I dumped out some crumbs....

..... and began haphazardly sewing a few pieces together - working two blocks at a time so I could chain piece of course :)

And before I knew it, I had sections big enough to trim down to a uniform 6-1/2 inches!

Wow - this was really, really fun!  So freeing!  No worrying about whether the fabrics "matched" or were the "right size" or even about having a perfect 1/4" seam!!!  Just put a couple of pieces together, sew, and repeat.  I loved it!!!

This is my November NewFO Challenge project - getting in there early, right?  For sure, this will be my Rainbow Scrap Challenge project to use up my crumbs next year!  I may even have to cheat and do a few more before then :)  They are like potato chips, you can't make just one... or two .... or .... well, you get the picture!  Be sure to check out the other projects linked up at Scraptastic Tuesday!  And don't forget the RSC at SoScrappy - November projects are going to be in Baby Blues - and you know I love me some BLUE!!!!

Linking up with:

Rainbow Scrap Challenge
November NewFO Challenge

Slow Sunday Stitching

Design Wall Monday

Tuesday Linky Party

Scraptastic Tuesday

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Hugs & Blessings!

Teresa

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